Volunteering as a research subject may seem like a crazy and slightly desperate thing to do. However, for data-hungry honours/grad/post doc students who are in desperate need of people just like yourselves for their experiments, being a lab rat may be a fun and lucrative hobby. The third head and new-found ability to telepathically communicate with pasta is also a bonus.

Most studies require an hour or two of ‘work’, but pay (on average) $10 – $15 an hour. It’s a quick way to make some extra cash and potentially participate in some pretty cool research!

Someone who hasn’t volunteered as a research subject may have some misgivings. Let me quell your fears – in scientific studies, the researcher will usually fully brief you on the tasks that you will be performing unless the way the experiment is designed requires otherwise. Privacy is a big deal and is handled very seriously by the researchers – they will not refer to you by name in their reports or release any identifiable information about you to the public. Prior to the study, you will sign a contract stating that you are able to stop the experiment at any point if you feel uncomfortable.

I will not participate in experiments which require me to consume an experimental drug or other unidentifiable items, or to receive substances intravenously (and these usually pay a lot more than $10/hr, more in the $xxxx.xx range!) since I’m a wimp. However I’ve participated in non-invasive experiments which hooked me up to an EEG Machine, required me to use a computer, or sit in a dark room for an hour listening to tones and looking for lights. Part of the fun is seeking out weird projects! With scientific research, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get something completely different each time.

‘But wait Spiffy Owl,’ I can hear you tweet, ‘how do I find these lucrative opportunities to donate my body to science?‘. Hearken my dear lost owlet, one needs only to wander through the halls of your local Psychology Department to be bombarded with the flyers of many a desperate researcher. January and February are particularly fruitful months, as crunch-time is upon these poor students to complete their thesis. You may also want to see if your local University has an online board for this kind of stuff – simply add your email to the list to be notified of future studies. Hospitals may also be good hunting grounds. Generally once you’ve applied for one study, they’ll put you on a list (with your permission) as a potential candidate for others.

I’ve got a couple of studies that I will be participating in lined up for the coming months They will be recorded here for your amusement. In the meantime, Spiffy out.

That’s right! I received my cheque from Screenscape just yesterday, sweet deal.

One of the staff actually told me they would only be sent out once a month, and that the November cheques would be mailed today, so either they made an exception for me or decided to send them out early. If it’s the latter, I hope they change their payout scheme at least to once every two weeks – if they can approve poster submissions on the weekend, they should be able to fill out cheques more often than once a month!

At any rate, I’m $150 richer, and pretty pumped that I’ve covered a good portion of my holiday shopping. Complete review of the ScreenScape program coming soon.

That’s right, I’ve successfully put up 50 posters, and all my claims have been confirmed (I was supposed to put in 50 claims, but I think I may have missed one). Each poster translates to a minimum of $2.00 each. You can see the total amount ‘Pending payment’ of my account in the image above.

Since all 50 posters were put up within two weeks, I should also be receiving an additional $50.00 bonus. This doesn’t show up in my Account Information, but I’m assuming that it will come with the check. I submitted my claims on Friday night I believe, and they were approved by Saturday afternoon. The check is supposed to automatically be mailed out when my account hits $50.00 – which means that it should have been mailed out today (Monday morning) and should arrive within the week.

Fingers crossed!

Phew! It’s been a busy week class-wise, and it’s still crunch time before the final exams. Also my WordPress blog is acting up and giving my grief. However I did manage to make some progress with ScreenScape, and finally stuck up the last of fifty posters today. I’ll fill you in more on what’s been happening once I have a spare moment, but here are some quick stats for now:

Total time needed to place posters*: 5 hrs and 50 mins
Total time needed to submit venues online: 35 mins
TOTAL TIME NEEDED TO COMPLETE JOB: 6 hrs and 25 mins

*transportation to and from CIRCUITS was not included (similar to the way you would not be paid for the time it takes to get to and leave work). Transportation time between poster-plastering within a single circuit was included.

I just submitted my last chunk of claims and they are all currently pending. I put up 50 posters in total, used up all my brochures, and a handful of stickers. I put 51 claims in to ScreenScape (50 being for the posters, 1 being for brochures left at a location). If all my venues are accepted, the projected base pay for this job comes to $102. Since I have made more than 50 claims within my first two weeks, I should also be receiving an additional $50 bonus, bringing the total pay up to $152.

This translates to a projected salary of $23.40 an hour, which is significantly larger than my previous post.

ScreenScape is usually very quick on the ball with approving submissions, keep checking back here and I’ll stick up a note once they’ve been confirmed. By then I would have met and overshot the $50 minimum payout, so we’ll see how quickly the check arrives.

To note: some ScreenScape staff have been checking out this blog, and have acted on one of my suggestions to make the ‘Submit a Venue’ form a little more user-friendly. Now it remembers the last city and country you’ve been in, so you don’t have to select it down from a drop-down menu each time you make a claim. Might not seem like a big deal, but those wasted seconds could have really added up, so thanks!

Much to my surprise, it looks like at least a couple of ScreenScape staff are working the weekend shift. Within a day of submitting photos for approval, they have all been confirmed. There wasn’t a single rejection.

I did experiment with several poster locations, and I’m glad to see that the eligibility criteria isn’t as strict as I initially thought. Even though I was not able to provide a full street address for most of the venues, I was still awarded the $2.00. For one location, there were no places to stick up posters – though I noticed that many ads were left along the windowsill. I left two brochures there instead, and was still credited for that location. I was worried that I may have put up too many posters in SMU, but each one I submitted from there was confirmed as well – even a poster that I stuck up on a random wall in front of a water fountain. *thumbs*

What was not acknowledged (at least not yet) were locations where ScreenScape brochures/stickers were clearly visible. I made sure that these items were included within the picture, but so far I haven’t received any extra compensation for that work. Again, handing out brochures/putting up stickers is supposed to fall under ‘potential for bonuses’, and employees are not given a set rate for the extra work.

It’s been raining all day today as well, and the weather does not look good for the next week. I wasn’t able to get any more posters up today, and I’m going to be swamped with other work in a very short period of time – I really want to attempt to put up the ’50 posters within two weeks’ to qualify for the $50.00 ‘bonus’, but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to make it. At any rate, once I hit at least 25 posters ($50.00), a check is supposed to be automatically mailed to my doorstep. Will keep you updated about payday.

Something I haven’t touched yet, though I should have, is the whole general idea behind ScreenScape’s Marketing techniques.

The approach they’ve taken – hiring young, enthusiastic people who know their city well – is nothing new. Many companies employ a similar type of technique through the use of ‘Campus Representatives’. Hired students with an established network of friends, who are promised awesome perks for promoting certain products. Apple does this – Campus Reps help promote iPods and Macs by throwing Apple parties/concerts and giving away free products. I often see a highly branded ‘smart car’ zipping around my campus promoting the energy drink Red Bull – they usually hit up University sporting events and give out the drinks for free. Certain travel companies also employ campus reps, giving them free trips for organizing a group of friends to participate in spring-break getaways.

However, the way that ScreenScape uses its employees is different and novel – they invest quite a bit upfront (close to $100 for a starter package) and pay for performance instead of # of sales. In other words, you are paid directly for the posters you put up – it doesn’t matter if anyone reads it, tries it, or buys it, you still pocket some cash. I haven’t seen this type of technique used by any other company, and I actually think it’s both a very clever way to advertise, and provides fair returns for the hired student.

ScreenScape is also a small, new company, and spending this kind of cash on street-level advertising must be a fairly large risk. The staff are therefore quite dedicated to making this work – the communication with street team members is quick and thoughtful, and you get the feeling that there is support available when you need it. The fact that they mail you poster-sticking supplies along with their advertisements shows that they have thought this through and are trying hard to make it easy for the street team to do their job.

For their sake, I really want to see this work. Especially since they are a small, local (close enough, us Maritimers gotta stick together), and smart start-up. Catching the attention of local businesses is exactly what they need to sell their kind of product, and once one venue uses it I’m guessing their hope is that it will spread like wildfire throughout the city. Using a sharpie to scrawl the venue name on each poster is another extremely insightful and clever strategy to catch the attention of the venue owner (but the overly excited lady looking like she’s receiving the blessings of the Screen-Display gods, eh… but whatever works). Paying the street team member a reasonable amount for each poster and providing all the necessary tools needed to do the job shows respect for their employees. They know the target market of their product, and the ‘target market’ of the type of people they employ, and use a very intelligent marketing campaign to bring the two together.